Memory
by reciprocityfic
Summary: Kate remembers. Post 6x03, sideways universe.


**Author's Note:** I wrote this ages ago, right after 6x03 aired, and posted it on Livejournal (when that was still a thing). It was the first fic I ever posted. I stumbled upon it going through my computer the other day, and thought I'd post it here. I know Lost hasn't been on in years, and I don't even know if the fanfic community is still active, but if you happen to read it, let me know! :)

xoxo,  
Rebekah

* * *

 _"When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are...It means that if we meet again, you will know me...For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost."  
-Frederick Buechner_

She walks swiftly through the halls of the hospital with her head down, occasionally bumping into a nurse or doctor or visiting family member. She always mumbles a quick sorry, but pushes on without stopping.

She reaches the open lobby of the building and breathes a sigh of relief when she is out into the open air of Los Angeles. The bright sun makes her squint a little after the dim lights of the hospital, but her vision adjusts. She lifts her head up briefly to scan the area for police, and seeing none, she relaxes and looks straight ahead at the curb, in search of a taxi to take her away from here. She sees someone just getting out of one and she walks over and snags it quickly.

"Where to?" the grizzly cab driver asks her from the front seat, and half-smoked cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Um, the Santa Rosa Hotel," she says, having been there before and not being caught.

"You have money?"

"Do you take credit cards?"

"Sure thing. I'll take it when we get there."

She smiles, and the cab driver turns around. They have to wait for a car in front of them to pull out. As she waits, she begins to become anxious, and she takes out of her pocket the piece of plastic the kind, pregnant girl gave her to distract her.

She runs her name over the name printed on the shiny credit card, Claire Littleton. She sighs. She had shown such compassion to a woman who had pointed a gun to her head and kicked her out of a taxi. She should have said thank you one more time before she left.

She feels the cab begin to slowly pull away from the curb, and her mind starts to be at ease once again. She glances down at the credit card once more, and she can see the reflection of the hospital in the plastic. The name catches her eye.

 _St. Sebastian Hospital_

Her mind is suddenly taken back to a man. A tall, muscular man with dark hair and eyes that she had bumped into coming out of the bathroom on her flight and whose pen she had shamelessly stolen from his jacket pocket.

A man she had seen once again while sitting next to a scared, pregnant young woman and pointing a gun at a taxi driver's head, standing on the sidewalk in a black suit with his luggage lying near his feet, fiddling with his cell phone.

The strangest sense of deja vu had come over her then. Had they...? But she passed it off as their collision outside the tiny restroom on the plane, and thought nothing more of  
it.

But now, as she sees the name of the hospital reflecting off of Claire Littleton's credit card, she remembers something more than these recent moments. She recalls distant memories that seem very dreamlike, but she _swears_ that they're real because she can feel the heat and humidity on her skin and she can hear the horrific screams almost drowning out the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shore. She sees the green of the tropical plants and looks at him sitting there in the sand, covered by the shade of the trees that surround the area.

 _"_ _Excuse me! Did you ever use a needle?"_

 _"What?"_

 _"Have you ever patched a pair of jeans?"_

 _"I...I made the drapes in my apartment."_

 _"That's fantastic. Listen, do you have a second? I could use a little help here."_

"Excuse me, miss? We're here."

The driver's voice lifts her from the trance of these almost imaginary but completely real moments, and their echo lingers in her mind, her thoughts entirely consumed by this man she _had_ met before, somewhere, somehow.

The credit card slips through her fingers.

"Are you okay?" the taxi driver asks, starting to lean over the back of the seat as her tears well up in her eyes. Her hands begin to shake and her breath hitches and again, she _remembers_.

" _Jack_ ," she sobs.

His name was Jack.


End file.
